Myrtle Beach Vacation 2013

My wife Jill and I have created many unique traditions for our little familial unit since we got together, but we've adopted another from her family and quite frankly it's become something that gives me a reason to look forward to summer each year. (Why else would I look forward to summer? This is South Carolina - it's 117° in the shade and there are mosquitoes the size of humming birds.) Jill's family has been making annual visits to Pirateland Family Camping Resort in Myrtle Beach, SC for more than 30 years, meaning they've been vacationing there at least as long as she's been alive. She and I have been a part of these trips as a couple since 2009 - that first experience was a real eye-opener for me as it was my first camping trip. I have to say that prior to that I wasn't sold on the concept of camping but it's apparently rubbed off on me well enough as we've been doing it ever since and we've even discussed buying a camper of our own (we've agreed that while it would be a nice piece of equipment to add to our garage, we don't quite need to go down that road just yet). Pirateland makes for a great get-away and excursions like this are a fine example of how family ties get a bit tighter thanks to things like sharing meals and a whole lot of laughter.

Pirateland Family Camping Resort

I have to be honest with you about this. When we go to Pirateland, we're staying in a "campground" but we aren't really "camping". Camping, to me, implies sleeping in a tent out in the wilderness without much more than a backpack and a compass to sustain yourself. What we're doing is essentially staying in a condo that at one point in its life happened to have been a traditional tag-along style camper.

A friend of Jill's family owns what's referred to as a permanent site and these tremendously generous folks are kind enough to let us use it for our annual trip to Myrtle Beach. In case you didn't know, a permanent site is a plot of land in a section of the campground where people have taken actual campers, moored them into a foundation, then modified them so that in many cases they don't even resemble campers anymore. For example, the camper we make use of still has the overall shape of a camper, however it has added features such as a porch, living room, expanded bedrooms, full bath, and even a laundry/utility closet. It's not a huge amount of space (especially not vertically speaking; I have to remember to duck when going through certain doors else I wind up concussing myself) but it's more than adequate for the two of us.

The campground itself is almost like a carnival environment in that you have all these nomadic people who've traveled from far & wide then congregated together for the sake of seeking rest and relaxation (amongst other things). Personally, I love checking out all the various campers that people bring onto the grounds as I find these porta-houses and their associated technologies to be quite interesting. Recreational vehicles and motor homes are the most intriguing as some of these things are palatial in what they have to offer in terms of amenities. I've jokingly told my wife that when we're old and retired (assuming we get old and can be retired, that is) we're going to sell off everything and buy a RV then spend our waking years traveling around. Hopefully by then RVs will be equipped with guidance systems; I'm not sure how well I'll be able to drive one of those behemoths when I'm in my latter years.

Pirateland is one of several campgrounds in Myrtle Beach which are adjacent to one another - I've never been to any of those so I have nothing to contrast the kind of things that they may or may not have to offer with Pirateland. Be that as it may, Pirateland isn't too dissimilar from a hotel when it comes to offered services. There's a laundromat, a store, WiFi, several pools, and even a restaurant in the form of a food truck (Hog Heaven BBQ). I still enjoy staying in hotels but I will say that our set up within Pirateland affords us a level of privacy and serenity not found in most resorts. There's just something about being near an inlet nestled amongst a bunch of live oak trees that's particularly satisfying.

2013 Annual Truesdale Myrtle Beach Putt-Putt Challenge Championship

To make a long story short, the 2013 Annual Truesdale Myrtle Beach Putt-Putt Challenge Championship did not go my way. Very much the opposite, as a matter of fact, seeing as how Jill more or less took me to the wood shed this year.

The 2013 ATMBPPCC went 4 rounds, with my wife coming out on top 3-1 in our best 3-out-of-5 scenario. We played at some of the most challenging courses we've encountered yet, and I think that added a lot to the overall competitiveness of the event.

Round 1 was held at the Castle course of Adventure Falls Golf (the Surfside location; there's another Adventure Falls towards North Myrtle). This is an older facility but one that is certainly well maintained and deceptively challenging. The first hole nearly threw both Jill and myself for a loop but we managed to recover and finish the round with a final score of Jill 44 to my 45, 7 and 8 over par respectively (every hole was a par 2; I have no idea who set that up but I believe they were a sadist).

Round 2 saw play shift to the Viking course of Dragon's Lair Fantasy Golf, a facility I've wanted to play at for years but never had previously. This proved to be my lone victory in the 2013 ATMBPPCC as I managed to squeak out a win over Jill despite the fact that the final score was a tie at 43 all (43 also being even par for that course). ATMBPPCC rules state that in the event of a tie the player with the most holes in one for that round shall be declared the winner. I had 1 hole in one (hole #10), thereby making me the winner.

Round 3 truly was a test of our physical conditioning as the atmospheric conditions began to wreak havoc on the both of us. For this round, we played the Dunn's River Falls course at Runaway Bay Miniature Golf, which is attached to the Tupelo Bay Golf Center. The heat and humidity common to summers here in South Carolina was in full force this day - I'm not ashamed to admit that I had perspired through my clothing so much that at the end of the round the sweat stain on my pants looked as though I'd urinated on myself. Jill bested me this round by a score of 41-44 (both of us were over for the round as par there is 39). We retired back to our camper after this round, needless to say, for showers and a fresh set of clothes.

Me, prior to losing 20 lbs. of water weight at Dunn's River Falls

The fourth and final round of the 2013 ATMBPPCC was held at Gilligan's Island Funland Miniature Golf. The Minnow course proved to be my undoing as I couldn't keep pace with Jill on the back 9. The 14th hole was particularly troublesome as it was there that I went from having a two-stroke lead to a two-stroke deficit. The final tally was 48-49, with both of us doing particularly well against the course as 54 is par at the Minnow.

It was all over but the crying at that point. I humbly submitted my congratulations to Jill on having defended her title, the first successful defense and retention of the ATMBPPCC trophy in its history.

Jill with the ATMBPPCC trophy

Random Acts of Fun and Hilarity

Food, Food, and MORE FOOD - Vacation, for a lot of people, is an excuse to let go of their diet and eat whatever they want. For me, it's just another day. I definitely need to be watching what I eat but I don't, and with that in mind came a consumption of mass quantities during our trip to Myrtle Beach. Every day while we're camping begins with a healthy portion of bacon, sausage, country ham, eggs, and crock pot grits (sometimes waffles, too, but they're not an every day offering). Several ladies in the family prepare these meals and they are always amazing - the meals and the ladies, I mean. Lunches are random in that they can be anything from buffalo chicken salad at Sweet Carolina's to a caramel mocha Rockuccino from the KISS Koffee House. Supper tends to be a family affair as well seeing as how one or two couples out of the gathering will handle cooking duties for the evening and provide enough vittles for the whole gang. Is it any wonder my clothes aren't fitting that well right now?

A typical breakfast during our annual Myrtle Beach trips

The New House of Blues Menu Blows - I have a long relationship with the House of Blues. I started going there for concerts around 2000 while I was a student at Francis Marion University (FMU and HOB are separated by roughly an hour's drive). It wasn't long after that that I found out about their Pass the Line program, whereby patrons of the HOB restaurant get early access to the concert hall. All you had to do was buy an entrée and you got in before the rest of the crowd; trick was, you still had to get there early enough to be at the front of the Pass the Line line. (HOB later debuted a program they called Crash the Barricade, which was similar to Pass the Line except you got treated to a buffet line with burgers, hot dogs, and the like. I never did this as I saw early on that folks in this line never got in as early as those of us in Pass the Line.) Seeing as how I went to hundreds of concerts at HOB, I became well-versed with their menu and I had several favorite items. Main among them were the catfish nuggets appetizer, buffalo chicken tenders, jambolaya, and the banana bread pudding (which was absolutely amazing). Unfortunately, sometime in the past two or three years someone within HOB's administration decided it was time to monkey with the menu in an apparent effort to fix what wasn't broken. They brought in Aaron Sanchez of Food Network fame and he redid the entire thing, removing all of our favorites in the process. I will say that we've eaten there twice since the changes were made and while the food is not bad it is not what we remember. I truly hope someday the old menu comes back but I'm not holding my breath on that.

The now extinct catfish fingers/nuggets appetizer from HOB

HOB's banana bread pudding - I can't tell you how depressing it is to know that I'll never eat this again

C4W Explosive Wrestling - I don't get to attend as many independent professional wrestling events as I'd like, but I do try to keep my ear to the ground when it comes to the industry as it relates to local wrestlers and promotions. C4W is a federation I'd been following loosely online via their Facebook page as I'd never had a chance to see one of their shows live previously. They ran a card the Saturday we got into Myrtle Beach which is why I took the opportunity to check them out. I will say this, to get off on a positive note; C4W has a great venue and set up as they're part of a sports complex called the X Gym. Their staging and ring all looked good, so from a presentation standpoint C4W has what a lot of other indies don't. Other than that, I have nothing particularly positive to say about C4W. Yes, I am a wrestling snob - I've been around enough good wrestling to know bad wrestling when I see it and C4W is mostly bad. To me, they are an example of what happens when an indie promotion with limited talent tries too hard to replicate what WWE does with a show like Monday Night Raw. You wind up with overly intricate storylines and "wrestlers" trying to emulate what they saw on TV. What boggles my mind the most about this show, though, is the fact that it drew a big crowd - as in probably between 100-150 people. I have no way of knowing how many were paying admission (some weren't; I saw the girl at the gate marking off names from a list) but it was an insane amount of people for a show that poor.

This is all you need to see to know C4W's quality - kick pads over Vans instead of boots

Teazers Pole Fitness & Dance Studio - Men have won the battle of the sexes. You know how I know we've won? Because pole dancing is now considered a legitimate form of exercise. While I was at the C4W show, I noticed a section within the X Gym that had a sign promoting "Pole Fitness". I wanted to give this the benefit of the doubt as being an honest gimmick like Zumba but did a little research on the matter (You guessed it, I Googled something!) and it turns out this is a business operating within the X Gym called Teazers Pole Fitness & Dance Studio. I guess it would've been too obvious if they'd called it Myrtle Beach Stripper School.

MagiQuest - After Jill & I had completed round 2 of the 2013 ATMBPPCC at Dragon's Lair, we were planning to spend some time walking around Broadway at the Beach which is a huge outdoor shopping and entertainment district. You can find everything at Broadway from the Hard Rock Cafe to Build-A-Bear, from Ripley's Aquarium to an Imax theater. We've checked out most of the offerings at Broadway but one we'd never tried previously is MagiQuest, a live-action role playing game. The concept is that you create your own character (I'm Red Beard and Jill is Lady Night Owl) that exists in a magical realm (think Middle Earth from Lord of the Rings) and you go about accomplishing tasks and missions in order to develop your character's abilities. It's a lot like RPG video games in that you're building up skills and resources with the ultimate goal being to become a Master Magi. You get a wand, which you can also customize, and you basically run around with a bunch of kids trying to slay dragons and other random baddies. I wasn't sure if it was going to be corny or not when we first went in but we wound up having a lot of fun with it so I'm glad we took the time to check it out.

An Octogenarian on a Trike - I bear no shame in admitting that I have the worst sense of balance in the history of mankind. Seriously, I can be standing still and lose my balance. As such, riding a traditional bicycle is not all that easy for me. This is why I purchased a Schwinn Meridian earlier this year; it's more or less a tricycle for adults, and I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it so far. The only issue I have with it is that it has no gears so hills can be challenging. Jill & I decided it would be fun to take our bikes to the beach this year as the campground makes for a great place to ride. Little did I know that my trike would inspire Jill's 80-something year old Grandfather to jump on it and go for a ride himself! Well, "jump on" might have been too extreme as he needed a little assistance in mounting up but once he got going he was fine. I can't tell you how many laughs seeing him on my trike generated; it was a great moment and a fine example of why it pays to always have a camera handy.

Myrtle Manor, aka the Farcical Nature of Reality TV - Myrtle Beach has never had an issue with maintaining its visibility as a tourist destination. Try as local government has to bolster its popularity by giving the area a more wholesome presence, the fact remains that there are parts of Myrtle Beach which will always be synonymous with booze, partying, and loose morals. When it came to pass that the cable TV network TLC (which I think should be legally required to change its name; it may still be "TLC" but I don't think their current line-up is indicative of a moniker like The Learning Channel) announced a show called Myrtle Manor to be filmed in a Myrtle Beach trailer park, there weren't too many happy elected officials. Be that as it may, the show went on and it featured an assembled cast of random miscreants who were intended to represent trailer park stereotypes. It was something of a hit in its first season as another batch of episodes has been ordered. We couldn't not see this place for ourselves which is why we sought out Patrick's Mobile Home Park, the trailer park where Myrtle Manor is filmed. Myrtle Manor doesn't make up the whole of the park, rather a rear corner of the property. In case you're a fan of the series and had any delusions that what you see there is real, I can tell you that Myrtle Manor looked deserted. It had the appearance of an abandoned movie set, which is more or less what it is at this point in time - a facade meant to serve as a location for a scripted series of events.

Medieval Times - I remember the first time I took my then-girlfriend, now-wife to Medieval Times. She had a strawberry daiquiri in the lounge while we were waiting to be seated and it turned her cheeks a bright shade of pink. I swear, she's let me drag her to so many weird venues for wrestling and shows like this that I'm surprised she goes along with any of my ideas any more. Regardless, going to Medieval Times has become a tradition for us as we've been every year since then. The show has changed significantly from what it was when we first started going but what's remained the same is the quality of the entertainment and the meal you receive during the performance. It's not a cheap night out but I think you get your money's worth.

Homophones Are Fun - One of my favorite moments of the entire week happened when we went to the MT box office to purchase our tickets. We've been to the arena so many times that there are only a couple knights we haven't had the opportunity to cheer for, and this being the case we wanted to see if it was possible to get into one of those sections. Generally speaking, seating is first come-first served meaning you won't know which area you'll be seated in until you go through the line. While we were purchasing our tickets the lady behind the counter asked Jill "Which night would you like?" Jill's response was, "WE GET TO PICK WHICH KNIGHT WE WANT?!" I cannot duplicate with text the excitement in her tone of voice when she said that and I only wish I'd had a video camera on her when she did. Of course, the lady at the counter meant which evening's show would we like to attend, not which knight's section in which we wanted to be seated. Epic blonde moment is epic.

We've been back home for a few days now. One thing that I realized immediately when we got back to our house is how much bigger our place seemed after having lived in a camper for a week. Our house isn't huge by any means but man did it ever seem gigantic when we returned! While the camper may be small, it's become a beloved part of our life together. I guess that sentiment plays into the old saying "Home is where the heart is". We've built a lot of memories during these trips of ours to Myrtle Beach and I certainly hope they continue on for decades to come.

My Check-Up & Sleep Study Results

UPDATE - 6/24/2013: My wife & I were on vacation in Myrtle Beach last week and while we were gone we had our mail held. Suffice to say we had a full box when we returned on Saturday. One piece of said mail was a statement from my insurance provider as to how much my sleep study cost and how much they were going to pay. The total bill from Lexington Medical Center and Lexington Sleep Solutions was $5,280. All I'll say is that than God I have some form of insurance because that's an insane amount of money for a medical procedure that involved no surgery or extended care.

Last month, I posted a blog entry wherein I went into great detail regarding the ordeal that was my sleep study experience. I'm not going to rehash any of that seeing as how pretty much everything relevant to my take on what happened that fateful evening has already been documented there, however I will take the opportunity to reiterate the fact that unless it is absolutely medically necessary I would never recommend someone willingly go through that. (It's a wretched thing and the technology behind it seems incredibly archaic compared to what's out there these days.) It's been a couple weeks since then and I've had a chance to revisit my physician in order to talk about the results of the sleep study as well as the blood work I had done during my initial consultation.

The short version of this is for me to say that I'm apparently mostly healthy, except for when it comes to how I sleep. Here's the long version.

Lexington Sleep Solutions called me roughly a week ago to let me know that the doctors there had been able to interpret the data from my sleep study and that they wanted me to come back in to discuss the results. This was news to me as I had been under the impression that I'd be able to return to my physician in order to see what the next steps would be as I'd asked that the results be sent to her office. I continued the conversation with the person I spoke to from LSS and they said the results had been sent to my physician; she went on to answer some of my questions about the study, particularly whether or not it looked as if I would need to begin using a CPAP machine.

I asked the question even though I already knew the answer. "Yes, they are recommending that you begin treatment with CPAP." My next biggest question was did I actually stop breathing during the study? (That's what I've been concerned about since I got put on this path, whether or not I'm potentially in respiratory distress while I'm sleeping.) She told me that I did not stop breathing (this echoed what the technician who oversaw my sleep study said when I asked him the same question) however my oxygen levels weren't as high as they should be - mine were around 88% at certain points and nominal is between 98-90%. The LSS representative went on to say that they would be referring me to a medical equipment vendor that would be able to go about assisting me in obtaining a machine. I wasn't ready to go down that road yet as I wanted to see the results of the study myself. I told her as much and said that I'd look into scheduling a follow-up with my physician.

A few things to keep in mind from this initial conversation:

1) They want me to come back, several times - repeat business, in other words
2) They recommended me for a machine - this was a foregone conclusion in my mind
3) I've been told by 2 individuals employed by LSS that I did not stop breathing - 2, count 'em, TWO
4) They were going to send me to a specific vendor for the CPAP machine - keeping the money all in the family, as it were

I point those things out because if you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know how I am - I'm not bashful about admitting that I constantly look for ulterior motives in everything that I encounter. I've been around enough hustlers in my day to know that they're there, even though nowadays they've gotten exceedingly skilled at operating as legitimate entities. Bankers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, etc. To quote Harry Dresden (from author Jim Butcher's excellent series, The Dresden Files), one of my favorite literary protagonists, "Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face."

That said, I went in Wednesday (June 12) for a follow-up with my physician. (Remember how I mentioned that LSS told me my sleep study results had been sent to my doctor? Turns out they hadn't been when I set up my appointment; a nurse had to request them on my behalf.) I have to say that going into my appointment I was more nervous about the results of my blood work than I was about that of my sleep study seeing as how I thought I had a good grasp of what was going on there. I suffer from White Coat Syndrome, that being an automatic sense of anxiety related to doctors, doctor's offices, and everything therein. I probably have high hypertension anyway (runs in the family, just like the red hair and freckles) but the WCS doesn't help matters as I know they're going to tell me I'm fat and that my blood pressure is elevated. I guess it comes from never having had many positive or reenforcing experiences in that kind of setting.

My appointment was for 10 AM and we (as in my wife & I - yes, she came with me) got to the office just in time as we encountered some unexpected construction on the way there. It's not logical that I think this way but I've always believed that if you have an appointment for a certain event, said event should happen at that specific moment in time or at least in a reasonable approximate time frame. You can probably guess where I'm going with this; I wasn't taken into an examination room until almost 10:30. The optimist in me was thinking we'd be out of there by 10:45 but that wound up being an unrealistic expectation.

Sure enough, the nurse taking my vital information confirmed that I'm still fat and my blood pressure is high.

My physician went over the results of my sleep study. She caught us completely off guard by telling us that I did, in fact, have several apneas during the test. This was in stark contrast to what both the technician and the other representative from LSS had told me. Suffice to say that my wife and I were shocked - neither of us are particularly good at hiding our emotions in terms of our expression and I gather we did an especially poor job of that in this moment seeing as how my physician seemed set aback by our reactions. It's not quite like being told you're cancer free by one doctor only to then be told you have a terminal case by another, but be that as it may the shock was real.

From there we talked about my blood work. Like I mentioned earlier in this entry, my blood work was what I was truly concerned about. For one, the sample had been drawn without my knowing of it in advance so I naturally assumed my having not fasted prior to the test would have affected its outcome. I was surprised again, this time by some good news. My blood work came back spotless - no issues of any kind. No signs of diabetes, cholesterol issues, or anything else for that matter. I was half expecting her to tell me I had 8 weeks to live by that point in time. In the grand scheme of things, I'm very happy that my levels were good as that's a real sense of your overall health. I'm grateful to know that all this clean living I've been doing for years - other than my gravy addiction, that is - has paid off in that regard.

My physician wrote me a prescription for a CPAP/BiPAP machine, a sleep aid, and something for my blood pressure. (She also said I should take a cruise as my vitamin D levels were lower than they should've been - if only I could turn in a booking confirmation from Carnival to my insurance company without them laughing at me...) We discussed my having been generally uncomfortable wearing the CPAP mask, which is where the recommendation for the sleeping pill came from. I don't like that idea, seeing as how I've never wanted to get on a medication that might possibly lead to a dependence, but she's assured me that it's mild and that it will help me to relax while wearing the mask. I have an appointment to she her again in 3 months, so we'll see where I stand then with these changes to my lifestyle.

I was given a copy of the report from my sleep study to take with me. It goes without saying that this has made for interesting reading seeing as how there are a whole slew of $25 medical terms used within it, the meanings of which I didn't know. ("Titration", for example, which is an analysis of a component's concentration - oxygen, in this case - in a given sample.) I spent some time going over them, as well as the report as a whole. While I'm not a doctor I am kind of smart, I'm rather fond of numbers, and this document is filled with them. Here's a breakdown of the statistics.

Length of sleep study - 411.5 minutes (approximately 7 hours)
Actual time spent asleep - 338.5 minutes (around 5.5 hours)
Time to sleep onset - 27 minutes
Time to REM sleep onset - 198 minutes (3 hours, 18 minutes)
Apnea-hypopnea ratio prior to CPAP treatment - 0/95
Apnea-hypopnea ratio after CPAP treatment 6/21

Two things stick out to me immediately:

1) The reported length of time I was asleep

I'm splitting hairs with this but I really don't believe that I slept that much during the sleep study. Here again is a reason why it would've been great to have had a visible clock in that room I was cooped up inside of as it would've served as a point of reference for my documentation purposes, if nothing else. I'm sure there's a brainwave pattern they're looking for from the data being collected by way of the wires that were on my head which indicated I was "asleep", so I probably don't have a leg to stand on here in trying to argue my point. (How do they know my brainwaves are like everyone else's? It's conceivable what signifies sleep in the minds of others might mean I want a steak burrito with extra guacamole in mine.) It did not seem like I received the amount of sleep that the report states. (Are you asleep if you're conscious enough to be able to have an internal dialogue about how you wish the walls were thicker so that you wouldn't be bothered by the guy in the next room sawing down redwoods?) I certainly didn't feel rested the next morning, and I'm sure that could be used against me seeing as how it would be fodder for the diagnosis that I don't sleep all that well anyway because of the apneas and hypopneas.

2) The comparison of my apnea/hypopnea ratio with and without CPAP treatment

I don't believe I've taken the time to define either of these terms. An apnea is a suspension of external breathing, whereas a hypopnea is an episode of overly shallow breathing. With that in mind, see if you can follow along with my logic here and why I don't see how CPAP helped me.

Prior to CPAP treatment

0 apneas, 95 hypopneas

With CPAP treatment

6 apneas, 21 hypopneas

Again, I'm not a doctor but the fact that I didn't have any apneas initially then had apneas during the period of sleep where I was receiving CPAP treatment doesn't give me a shred of confidence that this machine is beneficial to me. It's supposed to prevent apneas from happening, not cause them.

I did a bit of research (you know what that means - I Googled something!) and I found a study published in 2007 by the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (which is the official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine) titled Central Sleep Apnea on Commencement of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure in Patients with a Primary Diagnosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnea-Hypopnea (you can see the report for yourself here). There's a lot of medical jargon to it, as you might expect, which is why I won't bore you with a synopsis. Here's the important part, the conclusion.

"CSA (central sleep apnea) on commencing CPAP amongst patients with a primary diagnosis of OSAH (obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea) appears to be relatively common. Male sex and past history of cardiac disease are potential risk factors. These patients seem to have more disturbed sleep on their baseline studies, are prescribed somewhat higher CPAP pressures and may become long-term CPAP failures."

So where am I going from here? I am pleased that my blood work was in good standing. That shows me that the exercise I'm getting and the things I'm eating are sufficient to keeping me in good health. I'm planning on checking around to see if I can rent a CPAP machine, although if it turns out that my insurance will pay for the whole thing I may wind up going ahead and purchasing one. I'm willing to try it for the sake of satiating my wife and my physician, even though I don't believe it's going to help me in the long run. Of course, I'm going to start taking the medication for my blood pressure immediately. I guess I'm lucky that that's all I have to concern myself with as of right now. We'll see where we stand in September as that's when I'm scheduled to see my physician again.

Movie Review Round-Up - A Furiously Tangled Trek Into the Oblivion of Iron Man 3

It's summer time which means it's also movie time, and for that reason it's one of my favorite times of year. I could do without the heat and humidity seeing as how it tends to turn me from being a big, hairy beast into a big, hairy sweaty beast with questionable hygiene. It's 138 degrees outside this time of year and there are bugs whereas in any given theater it's 70 degrees and there are nachos readily available. Sure, there are annoying little kids and their unqualified and ineffective parents to deal with (sadly I've had experiences in theaters that have left me questioning how some adults have lived as long as they have and wanting to punch a child), but is it any wonder why I'd sooner stay inside and watch movies?

Star Trek Into Darkness

Picking up where JJ Abrams' reboot of the classic Star Trek mythology left off, Into Darkness sees Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), and their cohorts plunged into battle with a foe that is both mysterious and familiar. Through perceived acts of terror, this villain reveals that Star Fleet has realized a threat exists in the form of the Klingons and that scientific exploration is no longer the sole purpose of their operations.

Pine and Quinto are the obvious headliners of this movie but for my money Benedict Cumberbatch is the true star. His portrayal of Khan is absolutely brilliant - he has an amazing voice, which is a lot like that of Jeremy Irons only somehow more visceral in its delivery. Like all great villains, he has charisma to rival that of his protagonist counterparts. Combine that with the fact that his character's back story involves a legitimate effort at revenge and you can see why there are points in this that I was genuinely pulling for Khan instead of the crew of the Enterprise.

Longtime Trek fans will quickly realize that the plot of Into Darkness is something of a re-hashing of 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This take on Khan is more relevant to today's audiences as the concept of a character seeking vengeance on an assumed political or government entity is certainly identifiable.

One of few issues I have with the movie is the finale of Into Darkness in that it tidies up a bit too well. There was an effort to send everyone home happy here, or so it seems. That and the fact that there are still parts of the Enterprise's interior that look altogether too much like a boiler room are all that bothered me. I'm looking forward to seeing where this new Trek is headed, even though it may be a while before we see another one since Abrams' focus is now on a different universe, one far, far away from this.

/5 Tribles

Iron Man 3

The world has changed for Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) since his encounter with other-worldly beings in The Avengers. He's a man so distraught with fear over being unable to protect the one person he cares for more than life itself (Pepper Potts/Gwyneth Paltrow), he's dedicated his every waking moment to advancing his Iron Man armory by building dozens of specialized configurations. Try as he might to use what he knows to satiate his fears, they're realized when Stark encounters an international terrorist known as the Mandarin.

I don't get Stark as a haunted man who's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, even though it's a topical subject that's gotten a lot of attention now that so many members of our Armed Forces are returning home from combat with symptoms of PTSD. Downey is still the only person I ever want to see play Tony Stark, I just think the well is running dry on Iron Man now that he's done his job in serving as a conduit for The Avengers to assemble. What's more, the relationships that exist between these characters doesn't feel as fluid as it has in the past.

I hate to say this - IM3 is my least favorite of the Iron Man franchise. There was a lot of fanfare about Shane Black (who's best known for having created the Lethal Weapon series) coming aboard to take the helm once Jon Favreau decided not to return as director after having lead the first two films, but I don't think Black's writing or directorial style have improved matters. If anything, he's managed to take the canon a few steps backwards. IM3 has too many moving parts that aren't that interesting. This is particularly disappointing because there's a decent chance this is the last dedicated Iron Man film starring Downey, Jr.

/5 Shellheads

Tangled


Tangled is Disney's interpretation of the Grimm fairy tale Rapunzel, and like many of the Disney translations this story has been modified to make it more consumable for younger audiences. By that I mean it has a happier ending where evil has been vanquished and good prevails, as opposed to almost everyone involved dying a horribly tragic death. But what else should we expect? This is Disney, after all.

Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) is in her late teens here and, like most girls her age, she's beginning to feel the urge to strike out on her own. In Rapunzel's case, her need is more legitimate than most seeing as how she's been held captive under the pretense that the outside world is a terribly dangerous place by the woman she thinks is her mother, Gothel (Donna Murphy), in a tower where the only other being she has contact with is her pet chameleon Pascal. Her desire to flee is enabled when a bungling burglar (Flynn Rider/Zachary Levi) finds his way into the tower. He inadvertently sets off a series of events that not only gets Rapunzel out of the tower but reveals her true identity as well.

I think a lot of people are under the impression that Disney and Pixar are the same entity but in watching Tangled I can tell you that a number of differences can be spotted. The style of animation, most notably, but what stands out the most is the writing. I'm of the opinion that Pixar's films are some of the best written movies, animated or otherwise, you'll ever see. I'm not saying that material like Tangled isn't penned well but the fact that this is an adaptation versus a novel concept does hurt it somewhat as there's already a "tower" in place from the start which confines where these characters can go.

There's not an overwhelming sense of star power here, and I appreciate that. It seems like a lot of A-list Hollywood talent do an animated feature for the heck of it. Here, you have a main character voiced by Mandy Moore, a singer and actress who's more than capable of handling the musical elements while also breathing life into Rapunzel. Zachary Levi does a great job with Rider as he's not only the comedic center of the film but also a character with a number of dramatic scenes as well. Donna Murphy is yet another evil pseudo-mother in the annals of Disney mythology; she doesn't have that much to hang her hat on as the character isn't as involved as some of their other villainous matriarchs have been.

This may seem odd but my two favorite characters from Tangled are ones that have no actual lines: Pascal the chameleon and Maximus the horse. Seriously, they're fantastic - I'd probably watch an "Adventures of Pascal & Maximus" if it ever happened.

 /5 Frying Pans

Fast & Furious 6


I have to apologize to anyone who's a fan of this series because I don't particularly see the need to spend a whole lot of time reviewing this movie. When you are talking about a franchise that's on it's sixth iteration, it stands to reason that the movies have become paint-by-number in terms of their assembly and that's exactly the case here. There are criminals, there are cops, there are fast cars, and a whole heaping helping of absurdity to tie it together.

Vin Diesel and essentially all the other original members of the Fast & Furious cast have returned. Their characters have more or less sunk into lives of hiding in order to stave off heat from various international crime fighting organizations, but as it turns out it's those same groups that were hunting them that now need their help. There's a new bad guy in town, one with a similar penchant for being fast and furious about it, and there's apparently no better team to throw at this new threat than an aging group of street racers.

I'm one to talk when it comes to criticizing movies and TV shows where an ability to suspend what's plausible in this realm of existence is necessary, seeing as how that's more or less everything that I watch. Be that as it may, Fast & Furious 6 has a number of scenes where you have to take everything you've ever learned about physics and the durability of the human body and throw it out the window. More than that, you have to take it and light it on fire with kerosene - it's that crazy, and it's that distracting. For example, if Fast & Furious 6 is to be believed, there exists a runway somewhere in Europe that is approximately 300 miles long.

Don't worry, they're already working on Fast & Furious 7 which will add Jason Statham to the cast.

/5 Vin Diesels

Oblivion

In the not so distant future, humanity has fled planet Earth as a result of the rock we once called home having been ravaged by an alien race (who went so far as to blow up the moon, just for good measure) that sought to annihilate our species and strip-mine the globe of any useful resources. We were somehow able to overcome the odds and defeat the invaders but we did so at the cost of losing what once was our home world as Earth is too far gone to remain habitable. Now only a few humans remain on Earth, support crews in place to oversee a mining operation to provide fuel for the colonizing effort on one of Saturn's moons (where the survivors of our kind are holed up) and protect it from attacks by alien survivors, now known as Scavs (short for "scavengers").

Tom Cruise leads the cast of Oblivion as he plays Jack, a character who is a mechanic but also a soldier, tasked with maintaining a batch of automated mining platforms and a squadron of airborne drones that protect them from Scav attacks. Imagine Ethan Hunt from the Mission: Impossible series but with more knowledge of engines than international espionage. He's flanked by Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), whose role in the operation is similar to that of technical advisor and overwatch, meaning she's Jack's eyes and ears when he's out in the wasteland.

Visually speaking, Oblivion shares much with director Joseph Kosinski's only other film, that being TRON: Legacy. That's not a complaint as I loved Legacy and I can't wait to see what Kosinski does with the announced sequel to that film.

I don't feel like I can justifiably get into discussing the remainder of the cast because, to put it quite simply, there's a whole lot of ways I could spoil the plot and I don't have enough cleverness within me to skirt the material without blatantly stating what happens. That said, I will tell you that while there are a number of twists to this story the sum of the entire thing is very derivative. There are elements of films like Moon, Terminator, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Independence Day, and a sprinkling of classic Twilight Zone episodes. It's not a bad mix of inspiration as sci-fi goes these days but the more the movie goes on the more imitative it seems to become.

/5 evil super computers

Please Stop Enabling Your Children

This is the time of year where high school and college students are celebrating their victory over the confines of academia through various graduation ceremonies and what have you. Those are great moments in the life of a young person as they signify years of dedication finally paying off in obtaining a diploma or degree. Even though it's been better than a decade since I last walked that aisle as a graduate, I can still remember the feeling of excitement knowing that I had accomplished something awesome brought to me. I earned an honors diploma from Buford High School and I graduated cum laude from Francis Marion University. During commencement, I knew I'd worked hard and I'd earned what I was about to receive. I think that's an important sensation that people in their late teens and early twenties need to experience, especially in today's economy when finding a good job isn't exactly easy. It's proof that a reward comes from sacrifice and dedication, not from merely showing up or doing only what's required to get by.

I've said all that to say this. I'm a little sick of seeing so much hubbub about kids "graduating" from kindergarten, preschool, or even middle school for that matter. (Please, dear readers, enhance your calm and refrain from hurling flaming arrows at my house until the end of the blog. I'm not saying I'm going to back off of my opinion by then, I just want you to read the whole thing because it helps my site statistics.) Why do I feel this way? To be perfectly honest, it's because of the fact that I feel like parents are raising a generation of children who are going to feel entitled to everything and who exist under the notion that everything they do, no matter how insignificant, is a major achievement.

This isn't a new state of mind I've recently adopted, rather it's become exacerbated by recent events. I recall going to a tee-ball game several years ago where no one kept score, everyone got to run the bases, and everyone went home feeling like they were a winner. I thought I'd suffered some sort of psychotic episode and my mind had trapped me in whatever Godforsaken realm it is where Barney the Dinosaur and the Teletubbies exist.

While watching the game, I thought back to when I was a child playing tee-ball for P&M Trucking. I remember the team name well because our uniforms were a distinctive combination of green jerseys and yellow trucker hats - if you didn't know any better you'd have thought we were sponsored by John Deere. I didn't get to play that much, you see, because I was exceptionally good at hitting the tee but not so much the ball. Probably the highlight of my tee-ball career was an attempted base slide - notice I use the word "attempted". Lets just say it was a bad idea, well-intentioned as it were. For one I'd never so much as even practiced such a maneuver before not to mention the fact that we didn't wear full pants, rather these white short-shorts, meaning my posterior was more than a bit sore in the days following that game. We wore the same thing when I played recreational league basketball. Seeing as I was a husky lad they made me look like I was wearing hot pants instead of athletic gear, which I'm sure was quite the sight.

I know we kept score and I know we played as close to a legitimate game of baseball as we could without involving pitching, obviously. We felt good when we won and we felt bad when we lost - the same was true when I played basketball. (True story, I played for a rec league basketball team that lost every single game - our coach even quit on us during the season. What a role model that guy was!) We always got a cold drink and a Little Debbie cake afterwards regardless of how we performed but the point of these past two paragraphs is that we weren't coddled into thinking we had done something remarkable when we hadn't. Quite frankly, I know I'm better off for it.

Why? Having worked to earn something - whether it be a win in a tee-ball game, an honors diploma, a car, or a house - makes you appreciate its value that much more. It's fine to encourage people with gifts or an occasional freebie but the danger there is that after a while it becomes a part of their character to expect things to be given to them. They've so rarely had to exert any effort towards a goal (for that matter they may not even know what the concept of a goal is) that doing so feels unnatural, and then they complain about not getting their way instead of striving to overcome.

It's the same reason why there are signs at national parks stating "DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS"; behavioral science shows us that over time they'll become dependent on a handout and forget their natural capacity to forage for themselves. That's what's going to happen to our society if we keep letting kids think everyone is a winner when it comes to tee-ball, we'll wind up with a culture that doesn't know what to do when life requires them to take action. They'll all be standing around crying, wanting to know why the team mom isn't there to give them a soda and a treat.

I don't mean to say that you, as a parent, shouldn't cheer on your child in everything that they do. (I mention this because, in case you weren't aware, I'm not a parent. My wife & I are trying as we both would love to start a family but we haven't been blessed as of yet with our own little bundle of joy.) Very much the opposite, as a matter of fact. I think parents should do their best to encourage their children towards success. In my mind, that means showing them the value of hard work while giving them the tools to develop character traits like perseverance and determination. I don't think you can do that by instilling in them at a young age the perception that they'll be fine just by virtue of showing up.

I don't believe I've ever told anyone this but one of my biggest inspirations in life after graduating from college was something that Dr. Luther F. Carter, President of Francis Marion University, said to me as he handed me my degree, "You made it this far now lets see what you can do with it." If I had never been pushed to work hard by my parents, I would never have bothered to take honors or advanced placement classes in high school. If I had never taken those classes in high school, I wouldn't have gotten the scholarships that allowed me to go to college without paying a dime for tuition. If I hadn't done my best to get through college, I wouldn't have graduated with honors. If I didn't do any of that, I wouldn't be the director of information technology for an entire county in the state of South Carolina. Not too bad of a record for someone who isn't even 33 years old yet.

In wrapping up this rant, I hope none of this someday comes back to bite me in the rear. It's easy for me to say all these things but the truth of the matter is that parenting doesn't come with an instruction manual. Be that as it may, all of us need to remember that kids deserve to be kids and that we, either as parents or potential parents, should keep in mind that just because we want our children to strive for success whatever that "success" is may be totally different in their eyes than it is ours. Don't push them towards being an accountant if they love working with animals, or try to convince them that engineering is the way to go when they'd sooner be painting. Teach them to be the best that they can be at whatever it is they are best at. That way they might grow to be not just content with their life but successful and happy.

Words Are Funny

I've long had a fascination with words. It's a personality trait I can trace back to when I was young, specifically after having watched an old Gallagher sketch. Yes, the comedian who's most famous for smashing perfectly good watermelons and various other forms of produce with a giant mallet. He, rather eloquently (he has a degree in chemical engineering, believe it or not), discussed the oddities of the English language and how baffling the variances in annunciation of similarly spelled words can be. Comb, tomb, and bomb, for example - even words as simple as do and go are totally different in terms of phonetics. When you boil it down, the fact of the matter is that the English language is just plain weird but so too are the kinds of words we use to express ourselves and the connotations society applies to them.

The concept of curse words and vulgarities amuses me. You know the words I'm talking about - the ones that TV censors have conniption fits over. Who came up with these words to begin with? Was it their purpose to make something obscene, and if it wasn't who decided these words were "cursed"? Why is it that we try to keep children from hearing these words altogether instead of  telling them about the importance of recognizing conversational context?

Case in point, lets take a look at three words (PARENTAL ADVISORY - salty language ahead!) we use as slang for feces: Poop, crap, and shit. Why were these words developed? I have no idea, I can only assume feces was too proper; rebellion seems to be as good a motivator as any when it comes to this sort of thing. Poop is definitely the least demonized of those in terms of its societal impact. It's a word that is welcome around children. It has a jovial, comedic sense to it. You can say poop in front of your Grandma and she'll probably laugh at how silly you are. Crap steps things up a notch. Suddenly we've moved away from using a word that's just interchangeable with feces to one that can imply the conditions of a given scenario. "How'd this dog crap get on my shoe?" and "Crap, I forgot my homework!" are both justifiable uses of the word. From an audible standpoint, crap sounds bad. If you use crap while talking to your Mom, she might start to wonder about the kind of people you're hanging out with. The worst one of all when it comes to fecal slang is shit. When I was a kid, being caught saying that within earshot of a teacher would earn you a date with the paddle which is ironic because some of those teachers would literally beat the shit out of you. That made for a shitty day, needless to say.

I'd love to know how shit came to exist, as a word I mean. I'm up to speed on bodily functions; I took a biology class in college after all. I imagine two chaps from merry old England, drunk and on their way home from the pub, when one of them trips and falls into a pile of horse manure (which is entirely plausible because they didn't have cars back then, you know), and the rest is history. I imagine all the other vulgarities common to our culture have similar stories behind them. That's the sort of thing that needs to be documented, in my mind, if for no other reason than shits and giggles.

From a Biblical standpoint (talk about changing gears - this is a bit like going from reverse to third without so much as braking), there are plenty of passages which convey a message that moral individuals and Christ-followers should abstain from using such language. (I know most folks are their own moral compass these days but in the realm of humanity, the Bible is the foundation of this world's sense of morality and it bears including in this discussion.) In Ephesians 5:4, the apostle Paul writes "Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking..." That's about as straightforward as could be, in my opinion. However, it begs the question: What defines an element of language as being filthy, foolish or crude? I don't know who gets to make that decision, quite frankly, but I think it's fair to say that they've had their hands full over the years. One thing us humans seem to be exceedingly skilled at is coming up with new ways of defiling ourselves, be it through actions, opinions or anything in between.

This blog entry isn't just about why foul language is foul, it's about how seemingly random words come to prominence as part of our everyday vernacular. Here are two words which I've noticed have gotten a lot of usage lately.

Premiere - By definition, premiere refers to the first artistic performance of theatrical, musical or other cultural presentations. "There's a movie premiere tomorrow", "Lion King is premiering on Broadway next week", and "Metallica will premiere their new album later this year" are all valid uses of the word.

Be that as it may, premiere has taken on the connotation of representing the quality of a product or service. When used in that context, premiere isn't an indication of a debut so much as it is a marketing tool to say "We're awesome!" Case in point, last year there were billboard ads around our neck of the woods for a local bank touting their loan department and two employees making up said division both of whom were pictured on the billboards, dressed nicely and standing in front of a topiary. "Orangeburg's Premiere Lenders", the sign read, an obvious effort at promoting the quality of work they are capable of producing. This was particularly amusing to me because the paperwork for our mortgage was handled by this same bank and we had worked with one of the individuals pictured on the ad. We had to come into the bank 4 times to sign off on affidavits regarding corrections because that "premiere lender" botched the paperwork.

Premium - The only usage of this word people see for the most part is premium-grade gasoline but it's not a consistent product descriptor with the petroleum industry anymore seeing as how various vendors may tag that same octane as "super" or "plus". It all depends on whether you're gassing up at a BP, Exxon, or what have you.

McDonald's uses "premium" in a lot of their advertising, but they've gone so far as to copyright the term for what's known as the McDonald's Premium line. (Seriously, this is the kind of thing you learn by doing research for your blog.) Any time they feel like they've put together an especially worthwhile sandwich or beverage, they're likely to tag it with the "Premium" prefix, as is the case with the new Premium McWraps. Is the food worthy of being called premium? I couldn't tell you because I haven't eaten anything other than a sausage biscuit from there in years. I guess the Premium line is too good for my beloved sausage, egg & cheese.

What I get such a kick out of with words like this (as well as words like best, greatest, etc.) is that they are ultimately gimmicks - shiny titles emblazoned with neon and pretty lights, used in absolutely unquantifiable statements. There's no way of measuring what they're promoting as having been measured, in other words. It's one of the cheapest methods of promotion imaginable and it's a little offensive to me. Why? Because it's advertising that assumes the audience isn't smart enough to make a logical conclusion on their own. That's the way of all media and state-sponsored education, though. "Now you be a good little consumer - trust us and go buy what we tell you to!", they seem to say.

This is a discussion, like a lot of observations I make, which isn't going to make any kind of a difference to the world. It's really just about me taking the time to point out something that strikes me as being too absurd not to talk about. I know other people see the sort of things that I recognize but I guess I've spent so much time in my life looking for ulterior motives that reading between the lines of something like words, their usage, and meanings only comes natural. I'd hope at the very least that if you're reading this you'd question what's going on the next time you see a word that looks out of place or like it's being taken advantage of in how it's being manipulated. Words can't protect themselves, after all, so someone needs to look out for them.